1 Paris: So I'm stuck here in cyberspace as a computer-simulated personality based on my mindscan?!2 Iki Piki: Afraid so. Serron accidentally cleaned out all traces of your DNA from the ship, so we can't clone you.3 Paris: Hrmm. Well, best be philosophical about it, I suppose.4 Paris: Spanners, can I get control of any ship functions from here? Nothing major. Just, say, an evacuation hatch?

To circumvent the inevitable suggestions, I am not planning to incarnate Paris in realspace as a holographic
projection based on her personality simulation, à la Arnold Rimmer in
Red Dwarf. I like Red Dwarf, but I
don't want to copy it. We can presume that the technology they have available is not up to generating
a hologram of Paris, or something.

2015-02-14 Rerun commentary: I lost count of the number of times readers suggested that Paris be incarnated as a hologram, like Arnold Rimmer. It kind of makes me wonder if people like original stuff, or if they prefer seeing familiar stuff redone. There certainly is some comfort and also humour to be gained in revisiting a familiar fictional circumstance, and there are of course many instances in IWC when I use that to maximum effect. I just really didn't want to do that here with Paris.

I think sometimes creators need to push their audience a bit into unfamiliar territory, rather than take the easy way out and do what someone else has done before.

This is kind of high-falutin' meta-creativity stuff, and I don't want to sound all elitist or anything, but it does tend to become a thing you spend some time thinking about when you write stories.